Public HealthThe health migration crisis: the role of four Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development countries
Section snippets
Supply and demand for health workers in OECD countries
Statistics from WHO's Global human resources for health atlas25 suggest that the UK ranks among the least staffed of high-income countries, with 166 doctors and 497 nurses per 100 000 population (table 1)25, 26, 27, 28, 29—the second lowest doctor density (ahead of Turkey) and fourth lowest nurse density (ahead of Greece, Spain, and Turkey) of all OECD countries. However, this comparison seems to be misleading. Buchan27 reports that the official OECD figure for practising nurses counts only
Discussion and conclusions
The evidence from the four countries elucidates the balance between the effect of market forces and policy in determining the state of OECD countries' labour markets. Market forces clearly have an important role. As one example, the markets for doctors in Germany and for nurses in the USA demonstrate the effect of periods of pay depression in falling recruitment to training schools and retention of trained staff in the sector. To the extent that market forces hold sway, policies have to
Glossary
- OECD
- The organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development is a group of 30 member countries that share a commitment to democratic government and market economy.
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